People watching the Royal Wedding

United Kingdom

The history of London’s 10 greatest live music venues. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

London’s 7 most memorable lord mayors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The end of the First World War and the Duke of Wellington. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Everything you know about 17th-century London is wrong. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

History on film: London is smothered by a dangerous smog

The Great Fire of London: two historians discuss the events and legacy of the 1666 blaze. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Ripper Street series four: behind the scenes with writer Richard Warlow

Royal palaces of the Hundred Years’ War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Eleanor of Aquitaine.

History quiz – spacewalks, battles and Eleanor of Aquitaine. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Suez crisis and the north of England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Soviet missiles in Red Square during the May Day Parade of 1962, the year the world came closest to nuclear war. (Photo by Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images)

History explorer: the Cold War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Douglas Bader in October 1940. “He was competitive, unruly, foolhardy – but also brilliant, brave and hugely talented,” says David Cameron. (Photo by Fg Off S A Devon/IWM via Getty Images)

My history hero: David Cameron chooses Douglas Bader (1910–82). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Horrible Histories Live on Stage: an interview with creator Neal Foster

"Welcome home, Charlie": Chaplin’s postwar return to London. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the central image, leading Fifth Monarchists are executed on 19 January 1661 following the bloody failure of their uprising. Their leader, Thomas Venner, was hanged, drawn and quartered. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

Soldiers of the Apocalypse. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Photo of pencils

Q&AHow old is the pencil?

Full-Length Portrait of King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger

Q&AHow big was Henry VIII’s codpiece?

The reluctant ambassador: the life and times of Tudor diplomat Sir Thomas Chaloner. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The history of... re-enacting battles

Jacobites and the Ancient World. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Street Mill in Burnley. (Photo by Alamy)

History explorer: the power of cotton. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

On the trail of the Yorks: 8 places associated with Richard III’s family. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The history of the suntan

Events leading up to the battle of Hastings, and the conflict itself, are depicted in the Bayeux tapestry, a 68-metre-long embroidered frieze probably made within 20 years of the Conquest. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Bayeux unravelled: the scenes behind the threads. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mompesson House, which has sinister connections with a ghost known as the Demon Drummer. (Clare Hargreaves/The National Trust)

9 haunted historic houses

7 unusual historical sites in Britain and Ireland

Paris’s women at war and the Housewives’ League. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

German soldiers at the battle of the Somme. (Photo by Robert Hunt/Windmill Books/UIG via Getty Images)

The Somme through German eyes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British soldiers arrive to take part in the battle of France, 1940. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Books interview with Daniel Todman: "Everything that happened in 1940 isn't somehow down to Winston Churchill". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Men line the rails around Radio City, on an abandoned naval fort in the Thames Estuary. In June 1966, Radio City was at the centre of a murder enquiry that would lead to the closure of Britain’s pirate radio stations. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

1966: when the swing turned sour. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.